Family Sharing could return to Xbox One, says Microsoft's Whitten

Xbox corporate VP Marc Whitten wishes that Microsoft had done a better job explaining the features of the Xbox One, many of which were removed when the company reversed the console's "always-online" connection policy. Speaking to IGN, Whitten responded to a recent online petition asking Microsoft to re-reverse its decision and re-implement features like Family Sharing, which would have allowed users to share their digital games with other Xbox One owners via Xbox Live. "The thing that's really gratifying is that people are excited about the types of features that are possible," he said, "and it's sort of shame on us that we haven't done as good of a job as we can to make people feel like that's where we're headed."

"We need to do more work to talk about what we're doing because I think that we did something different than maybe how people are perceiving it." For one thing, he said, Family Sharing isn't necessarily gone for good. "If [Family Sharing] is something that people are really excited about and want, we're going to make sure that we find the right way to bring it back." It would require additional engineering to enable Family Sharing after always-online was dropped, so the feature was removed from the Xbox One launch window.

Whitten said Microsoft "learned a lot of lessons" over the course of the Xbox One's reveal, and the company will be "engaging more with the community" going forward. "I think it's the number one thing I'd want to do if I went back, was have the conversation more open and more complete."